I think you'd do well to read this person's thoughts: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44933637

That person didn't address the current climate in academia at all. Their examples of "contrarians" are all long-dead professors whose papers were published many decades ago in a different academic climate. That doesn't refute that academia in America has suffered ideological capture since, and questioning the "scientific consensus" on certain politically-charged topics is career suicide.

Also their Japan example seems poor. Japan remains a short a country relative to their prosperity. They're several centimeters shorter than a country with a similar GDP per capita, like Czech Republic. They're about the same average height as Somalians, despite having significantly better food security and a GDP per capita that's over 50 times higher.